Ever His Bride (32 page)

But he’d made her feel callous and vain and
guilty, made her shoes pinch. He was the one who had blustered his
way into the workhouse, who had demanded she leave without the
children.

He was the heartless one.

He was the one who had stood mutely in the
midst of the squalor, his face ashen, his eyes as wild as a spooked
horse.

He’d known all about the shoe tops and the
sharp tools . . .

“Why was the big man so very wrothful,
miss?”

Felicity brushed the curls from Betts’s
forehead and nuzzled her sweet-smelling hair. “I don’t know, Betts.
I really don’t know.”

And then a tiny, jangling thought came to
her, something that had not seemed quite right at the time,
something that haunted her now. . . .

Hunter Claybourne hadn’t been disgusted or
enraged. He’d been terrified.

H
unter returned to
Claybourne Manor on a drizzly moonless night, feeling as solitary
as he ever had in his life. He had consulted with his business
contacts in the north, sat in on the inquest concerning the
accident, and made substantial progress in his bid for recognition
by the Board of Trade. But he’d been restless to return home, and
honest enough with himself to know the cause.

Felicity.

He’d said her name a hundred times a day, and
cursed her with every breath. Yet he hadn’t been able to shake her
from his thoughts, nor could he quiet the hammering of his heart.
And now she seemed to live there inside him. Like a determined
morning glory, she had entwined herself and her inclinations into
his life. He damned himself for basking in her comfort.

And yet he had worried what she would think
of him and his rage that final morning. Even at the time, the
rational side of him knew his reaction was out of all proportion.
He must have seemed a lunatic outside the inn; and yet he couldn’t
recall a single word he had said to her. He had probably ranted and
swung his wrath around like a cudgel. He had felt insane after
pulling her from the workhouse, had stumbled into a field, stripped
off his clothes in the moonlight and scrubbed himself clean in the
Wear.

He would try somehow to explain himself, to
ward off her queries with concessions and reasonableness. And if
she wanted to waste her time and money on ill-conceived charities,
that was her choice. Condemning her would only make her delve
deeper into his reasons, and he couldn’t risk that.

Claybourne Manor was dark and battened down
for the night. The wild perfume of flowers of the summer shower
lingered in the air, a foreign and familiar scent that chipped at
his self-assurance. She was here in the house somewhere, no doubt
fast asleep and taking up too much of her bed.

He shucked off his slicker and started across
the broad expanse of the foyer. He’d only taken a dozen steps when
he ran smack into something that caught him across the waist.

“Blast it!” The woman had stuck a damn table
in the middle of the entry!

And something in the center of the table was
teetering, wobbling, growing ever more precarious in its circling
tilt. His eyes adjusted to the dark just as an extraordinarily tall
vase pitched forward and smashed against his shoulder. Flowers
rocketed everywhere, the vase landed on the floor with a ringing
crash.

“Mr. Claybourne!”

He knew the whisper. It came floating down
from above stairs, and the music of it set off his pulse. Its owner
padded barefooted down the staircase, the white glow of her
night-robe making her seem ghostly and untouchable.

Without sparing him a single glance or
another word, she set her candlestick on the table and bent to the
sloppy mess on the floor, sifting through broken stems and shards
of ceramic.

Her hair was more golden and wilder than his
memory could construct, her scent more searching. He stood there
like a simpleton, fisting his aching hands into his coat pockets to
keep from harrowing his fingers through the flaxen cloud of her
hair at his knees. Spots of heat singed his cheeks, blotches of
bitterness to know that she would consider the distressed state of
the flowers above his own.

She raised her eyes and they glistened in
disappointment. Her mouth glistened, too, her lower lip caught
between her teeth as she stood, having rescued a sprig of
honeysuckle. The fragrance hooked around his nose and made him step
closer.

“If I’d known you were coming I’d have left a
lamp burning for you in the window.” She smiled then, but
hesitantly.

“No matter,” he said, hearing soft voices and
lighter footfalls receding into the darkness, into other parts of
the house.

He watched as she smoothed her alabaster hand
across his coat, and slipped it comfortably beneath the ridge of
his lapel. Her fingers idled among the buttons; he wanted to lift
them to his mouth, to touch his lips to the ring that shone there
again, the bright ring he was sure she had abandoned.

“Though I rather thought you would return
during the daylight, Mr. Claybourne.” She tucked the sprig of
honeysuckle into his breast pocket and patted it. “I didn’t mean to
leave a trap so that you might rouse the entire house.”

“You smell very nice,” he said, instantly
thinking himself a dolt for saying it aloud.

“Thank you, Mr. Claybourne.” She looked shyly
up at him from beneath her lashes. “But I think you’re smelling the
honeysuckle.”

He’d never given a thought to the name of
that particular flower, but the breathy way the word lifted off her
mouth and stirred against his throat carried erotic pictures to his
mind and a sheen of sweat to his brow.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sleeping. I heard a horse in the
drive.”

“Hired in Hampstead. He’s put away now.”

“And so should you be, Mr. Claybourne. It’s
well after midnight. Come, I’ll take you to your chamber.” She
hooked her arm into his and led him up the stairs.

He knew the way to his bloody chamber, but he
followed her anyway, his senses dilated, marking the soft skiffing
of her bare footfalls and his own hard-booted ones, separating
lavender from honeysuckle, sequestering the heat of her hand that
kindled its way through his coat sleeve to his arm.

He hadn’t expected this sort of welcome:
fragrant flowers and her feathery whispers. As he opened the door
to his chamber, he knew even less what he ought to do about it.

Felicity felt her heart flitting around
inside her chest like a bird demanding its freedom. He smelled of
the coldest night, and trailed honeysuckle after him. His profile
was resolute, but had lost its sharpness.

She had prepared herself to be annoyed with
him, and unaffected by his nearness, but he’d looked confused and
contrite when she found him standing among the fallen flowers and
the shattered vase, as if he were a clumsy child awaiting a
scolding.

She had never known a man who could confuse
her as this one did. In the last week, she had revisited everything
they had said to each other after the incident in the workhouse,
everything he had done, every gesture and scowl. And she was no
closer to an explanation. She only knew that something was
dreadfully wrong, and that she had missed him.

Missed him! She must have: she’d waited every
night at the window for him, turning his ring on her finger, and
had made excuses for Branson to drive past the Claybourne Exchange
every day on her way to the Beggar’s Academy; and she had drifted
in and out of bliss at the memory of his kisses—but that couldn’t
mean she actually missed him. Missed him? No, it was more than
that. Much more. Oh, dear God—

She loved him!

And she’d known it since driving away from
him in Blenwick. She loved him for all his flaws and failings, for
his heroic courage, and for the goodness he hid even from himself.
Loved him for all the things he didn’t say, and couldn’t
understand. She loved him because he thought he didn’t want her
to.

Because he didn’t know how to love in return.
She looked down at her wedding band, and decided that it was time
he learned. To the devil with the contract. She was married
inexorably to Hunter Claybourne, until death parted them, and it
was about time she did something about it.

But how and what? He was looking at her from
the doorway and her limbs had gone warmly liquid, her fingers
unsure as she raised a fire in the grate.

“There,” she said, finally finding her voice.
“A kettle heating for your bath, clean water in the bath closet.
Welcome home, Mr. Claybourne.”

“My name is Hunter,” he said, striding into
the room and closing the door.

“Yes, I know.”

“Then use it, please, when we are in private
company. A year is a very long time—”

“Ten months, one week and six days.”

Hunter despised the fact that she brought up
the remaining time on her sentence every time he mentioned the
length of their contract. And he wondered how to reconcile her
eagerness to leave him with the fact that she was so perfectly
acting the role of a dutiful wife: fluffing his pillows, turning
down his bed. “Madam, even one day is a very long time to spend
with you.”

She gave an incensed little sniff. “Am I that
much of a nuisance?”

“That much, and more, my dear.”

Yet he felt more at home, more welcomed home,
than he had in all his life. It pleased him a great deal to think
that she might have been waiting up for him; had she possibly
forgiven him for his maniacal outburst in Blenwick. He pulled off
his coat and tossed it into the dressing-room laundry.

“I don’t mean to be a nuisance to you. .
.Hunter. But that seems to be the nature of our affiliation.”

“Indeed.” He allowed a smile and set his
traveling case across the arms of the chair. Matters were
proceeding well. Their words calm; she was about to pour him a
glass of brandy. “An invitation from Lord and Lady Meath came to my
office today—”

“To the Exchange?” She put the glass down
abruptly and took two scolding steps in his direction. “You were in
London today?”

He frowned at her attack, at the wrathful
angle of her delicate brow. “Most of the day—”

“And you sent no word?”

He was puzzled by her sudden annoyance and
decided to tread the next few steps very lightly. “I hadn’t thought
to. I never have before.”

“You haven’t been married before!”

He ventured a smile. “No, that’s true. No one
has ever cared to know where I am.”

“Well, I do.”

Her indignation warmed him to the marrow. She
had
been worried. He tried not to grin. “Ah. Then I should
have sent word that I had returned to the City?” he asked,
fortifying his voice with honest concern.

She sniffed sharply again and a strand of
hair fell from its moorings at her temple. “That’s the proper
courtesy between a husband and wife.”

“Interesting.” He wanted to tuck the strand
behind her ear, to test the silkiness of both against his memory.
“Then I shall send word to you directly should another occasion
arise in the next ten months, one week and six days. Though, I will
be far more constant in my communication than you were in your
promise to telegraph me of your whereabouts.”

“As I told you then, Mr . . . Hunter, I would
have sent word that night from Blenwick.”

“Not likely—given the circumstances.” He
could taste his fear again, metallic and oily, felt it licking at
his heart. “You would have been in that other railcar, Felicity. I
wouldn’t have liked that.”

“And we never would have found Giles, or Andy
and Betts.”

Hunter had purposely forgotten about the
extra baggage; he looked toward the door. “Ah, yes, the
children—”

“No. They are not here, Mr. Claybourne.
Though they sleep in Bethnal Green beneath warm blankets in a room
heated with wood from your stores. Fresh food is delivered daily
and feeds fifty or more. I’ve given them four washtubs, a crate of
soap and linens, clothing and shoes, writing slates and chalk. I
have ordered new schoolbooks, which should arrive very soon. I see
Andy and Betts every day. And Giles is learning arithmetic. I’ve
kept a detailed list of my debts to you. You’ll find it on your
desk, near the ledger where you’ve listed my other expenses. This,
too, is a loan, and I will pay back every penny when my uncle
returns from the gold country—

“Felicity—”

“Please don’t start an argument, Hunter, not
when you’ve only just arrived and there is this peace between—”

“Felicity—I meant only to ask how they
were.”

She looked sideways at him, righteously
skeptical. “They are doing very well, thank you.”

“Then, I’m pleased.”

Felicity didn’t believe him, but she lifted
his neatly folded shirts from his traveling case. They carried his
scent of lime and spices, and she resisted the urge to bury her
nose in the linen.